Stir Crazy
by tinybatfists
Summary: FICLET. Sherlock catches their next case in the waters in Central Park.


AUTHOR'S NOTE: *This is my first uploading in 13 YEARS. A LOT has happened since then and I'm considering increasing my FF output. I accept constructive feedback.*

It had been four days of torrential rain in New York. It was 10 in the morning when Watson emerged from her room fully clothed carrying her computer. She had taken her time this morning to shower and dress. The summer rains gave respite to the intense heat they had been experiencing, but also created other problems, mainly for Sherlock. He'd been banging about the place like a stir-crazy animal. She on the other hand was enjoying the few days of laziness and staying inside.

The brownstone was cool and quiet. The usual goings on of Sherlock didn't fill the air as they normally did. Immediately Watson knew that he wasn't in the house. Sherlock was not a quiet man. Everything he seemed to do also had the added effect of announcing his presence.

But maybe he was sleeping, which was rare for her to see. "Sherlock?" she called into the air. No answer. Before she could begin to wonder where he had gone off to, and before she even made it down the stairs, the front door banged open loudly and Sherlock sodden from head to toe crossed the threshold slapping his water-logged shoes on the wood floors. He was carrying a red bucket, which also sloshed more water onto the floor and his legs as he set it down.

"WATSON!" he exclaimed whipping his arm toward her spraying her with droplets of rain water and whatever else he had on him. She flinched and descended the last two steps gingerly, curious as to what he was up to, but not enough to get wet.

"Are you wearing shorts?" she asked looking him over as he stood dripping and positively looking pleased with himself.

"Yes Watson. Shorts. It is quite hard to wade through the small waterways in Central Park with pants on," he quipped. Not wanting to lose his steam, he picked up the red bucket and quickly made his way to the kitchen. "Come Watson! I've found the most interesting thing!"

"Sherlock!" She padded after him, picking her way around the puddles he left in his wake. In the kitchen Sherlock had stopped up the sink and dumped the contents of the bucket unceremoniously into it. He flung the bucket behind him, almost hitting Watson as she came toward him. She jerked her head expertly to the right and the bucket sailed past her head and clattered to the floor.

"Why were you in Central Park? You couldn't wait until the rains stopped?" She peered from around Sherlock's back into the sink to see a round black body with white polka dots and a long tail sitting at the bottom of the sink. "Is that a stingray?"

Sherlock stepped to one side allowing her full view of the creature in the sink. The stingray was about six inches across and from the tip of its head to the tail. It took up almost all the room in the sink basin.

"That is no ordinary stingray, Watson," Sherlock explained. "That is a _Potamotrygon leopoldi_. A polka dotted stingray. A freshwater creature." He reached down into the sink and rubbed the top of the stingray with his index finger. "It took me nearly 4 hours to find it in Turtle Pond this morning. And the rain did complicate things a bit."

"Okay, so why? What's so special about _Potamotrygon leopoldi_?" Watson asked. "You also need to shower and change. Whatever water you were wading in smells terrible."

Heeding her words, Sherlock began to undress himself. First, he unbuttoned his vest and discarded it in a saturated pile on the floor. "What's so special about this ray, Watson," he began as he struggled to remove his yellow t-shirt, "Is that it is one of the rare freshwater rays. It requires fastidious upkeep to survive." With his shirt in his hands, Sherlock rung all the water out of it onto the floor and tossed it with his vest. "It is also worth $100,000."

By the sink, Sherlock slid his feet out of his shoes and strode to the dining table chair to sit down and remove his socks, which he peeled from his feet. Like the rest of his clothing, he dropped his socks without regard, next to the chair.

"What? $100,000 for a stingray and it's swimming in a Central Park pond?" Watson asked in disbelief. She turned to where Sherlock was sitting, but he had moved swiftly to her side. She bumped into him as he stood resolute with his arms tight by his side. His body was humming with the energy he had pent up the last four days. Wading around in shallow waters in the rain did little to assuage his energy. Watson raised her right hand to brace herself on the dampness of his chest, where water still lingered in his chest hair.

Slightly embarrassed but more annoyed, Watson stepped back from him. She and Sherlock rarely touched each other outside of what was absolutely necessary, which usually included one of them saving the other's life in some way. But it wasn't the first time she'd seen him disrobe in front of her. That she was used to.

"Sherlock!" she looked down at her dampened clothes and laptop cover in disgust. "Ugh, okay. Are you going to tell me what's going on with the stingray? Or are you just going to dart about leaving puddles?" She stepped around him and put her laptop on the table and wiped the cover with the hem of her shirt.

"Of course, Watson," he replied wiggling his toes before shifting his weight back and forth on his feet. "But if you would search the news, you would find that two days ago, the aquarium suffered a break in and several marine biota were stolen. One of which was this stingray. But it wasn't the most important organism taken that day."

Already on her laptop, Watson confirmed Sherlock's report to find that a few million dollars worth of marine wildlife was stolen from the aquarium.

"That is no easy feat, to steal living things from an aquarium," she marveled. "It says here the most valuable thing taken was a type of kelp? It only grows in specific climates and originates in Australia. Aquarium scientists were working with a university in Florida to try and adapt the kelp into some sort of clean biofuel."

Watson looked up from her laptop to see Sherlock standing over the stingray as if he was sizing it up and assessing it. He had made no effort to dry himself after ridding himself of most of his clothes. Water droplets fell from his brow and the tip of his nose onto his chest. Watson looked away before she was caught staring.

"You know Watson—" he began while still looking at the ray.

She interrupted him, "No Sherlock. No. You cannot make soup out of a $100,000 stingray!"

He deflated just a little. "Hum. Just a passing thought."


End file.
